Need More Help?

All About: Explore Species

Explore Species brings together the strengths of eBird, the Macaulay Library, and Merlin—all in one place. Browse selected images and listen to songs and calls from the Macaulay Library; explore your eBird stats and how they compare to the total number of sightings in eBird; and benefit from Merlin Bird ID’s identification tips (ID content for more than 3,000 species). It’s everything we have to offer, for every species in the world. This article will show you how to get the most out of Explore Species.

Each page features photos and sounds selected to represent the variation in the species across its global range. The identification text from Merlin Bird ID is also included where available. Scroll through the photos or click Listen to hear and “see” the sound with the spectrogram player.

Refer to the numbers on the screenshot to follow along with the details below

1. Show stats and media for a specific region

The default view for Explore Species is the world, but if you want, you can see specific stats for any place in the world. Are you interested in only seeing data for Lincoln County, Missouri, or for Antioquia, Colombia? No problem, just type in the region of interest in the top left corner and your stats and the sightings map will display only data from that region. Selecting a region also gives you a seasonal bar chart so you can pinpoint when to go looking for a certain species.

2. Current list

Bird names displayed on pages across eBird (such as Targets Species,Illustrated Checklists,and Alerts) link to the Explore Species pages and list of species associated with each page goes with you. For example, if you are looking at an Illustrated Checklist for New York, when you click on a bird name, you’ll go to the Explore Species pages for that species. The previous and next buttons on the top right are filtered to just the birds that were on that list. Click the list name in the top center to quickly return to the page where you started from, or the species names to move back and forth through the list.

3. Change species

Look up any bird you are interested in. If you came from in from another eBird page, you have the option of searching just the species that were on that page, or searching all species.

4. Previous and Next

If you clicked on a bird name from a list elsewhere in eBird, the previous and next buttons let you navigate through just the species on that page. (Hint: this is a great way to explore your Target Species for an upcoming trip!) Otherwise, the previous and next buttons will let you navigate through all birds in taxonomic order.

5. Badges, find your data:

Below the species name are four badges that light up when you earn them. Click on your badges to see every observation for that species. Note: These are your global badges, not affected by a region filter.

Stats and Range Map

Explore Species is hands down the best way to explore the data that eBird has on a species. Click on any stat in blue to get even more info. With one click you can see all the photos in the Macaulay Library or see all of your observations of that species. Change the region the page is showing data for to filter the stats and zoom the map to that region.

When a region is selected, the Weekly Bar Chart appears, showing the frequency for each week of the year.

Range Maps show the full range of the bird. To see locations of specific sightings of that species, click the Large Map button. Read more about eBird Range maps.

Explore Media

Explore Species shows ten of the highest community-rated photos, sounds, and videos. Do you want to see more? The “View all” link opens the Macaulay Library archive, bringing even more media to you for your selected region or the world. If a region is selected, the media is filtered to just those taken in that region.

Learn More

Want to learn even more about a species? Scroll down to find additional information in All About Birds, Birds of North America, and Neotropical Birds.